It's the Cold I Fear
by Jenndude5
Summary: Phil Coulson has heard of the Winter Soldier. He's also heard of Bucky Barnes. The man in front of him is neither/...Or Phil and James have a heart to heart on a roof.


**A/N: I regret nothing. This was written for the awesome 'canis lupus familiaris'. This is my first time writing Phil and Bucky, so if they're OOC I'm sorry**.

 _It's cold…_

 _It's cold, and he can't move…_

 _...But he can see. It's blurry, and he can only just make out the silhouettes of bodies moving around him… He feels like he should know them…_

_And he hears, too… It's muffled, the sound barely breaking through to him, not nearly enough to make out the words they must be speaking, but he can_ ** _hear_** _it…_

_It's cold, and he can't move, but he can_ ** _see_** _, and_ ** _hear_** _, and he clings to this knowledge… because if he doesn't, he thinks he might forget he's alive at all._

He breathes; they drag him out of the chamber. His pants, the only article of clothing he's wearing, are soaked through, and his hair clings lifelessly to his forehead, dripping water into his eyes.

They tell him he is a soldier, _The_ Soldier, their asset.

They hand him a gun, point at a picture, and say _Target_.

He, The Soldier, understands. He doesn't think he should, but he does.

He thinks – _hopes-_ if he does well, they won't put him back in the cold. He doesn't like the cold.

 _Steady, aim… fire._

They try and put him back, anyway. He fights, because what else can he do? He doesn't want to go back, he won't. _Don't make him, you can't-_

-They throw him into a chair. There's pain, then nothing.

 _…It's cold…_

_…and he can't move…_

**-Line-**

 _ **Six months after the events at Washington D.C. and the fall of SHIELD.**_

Phil Coulson has heard of the Winter Soldier. He's also heard of Bucky Barnes.

The man in front of him is neither.

He looks lost, broken, and so, _so_ afraid ( _of what?_ ), sitting on the edge of a building staring out into the horizon. His breath hitching every now and then.

And he hasn't even noticed Coulson, yet. Or if he had, he's chosen to ignore him, which actually tells the former SHIELD agent a lot about the man's mental state.

" _What have I done…?"_

It was said so soft Phil almost missed it. Almost, but not quite. He couldn't tell if Barnes ( _but he's not, not really_ ) was talking to him or to himself, didn't know what to say, in either case.

"If you're here to kill me," He spoke louder this time, "you should do it already." pulling Coulson out of his thoughts. The Soldier ( _no, not that, either_ ) wasn't looking at him, hadn't looked away from the setting sun, so it was a little difficult for Phil to get a read on him.

"Who said I'm here to kill you?" he asks instead of _"Why would you let me?"_ even though he knew the answer to both questions.

The other man snorts, the first real emotion ( _besides fear, so afraid_ ) Phil as seen him show, even if the gesture carried no humor with it, "These days, everyone's here to kill me... I'm starting to think I deserve it." The mumbled words hit Coulson a little harder then he thought they would, but it's not the first time he's heard them. Before, it was from other agents, from friends, and he's always had to sit by and just _watch, watch them tear themselves apart from the inside out_ -

-Well not this time. Besides, Captain America would kill him if he just left his old friend to self-destruct on a rooftop.

"Maybe you do," Okay, bad start, judging from the tense shoulders, "But it won't be because of me." He moves closer, and when the other man ( _who are you?_ ) Doesn't make a move against him –still tense, but not aggressive (yet)- he sits down on the ledge about a foot away the soldier ( _because he's still_ ** _a_** _soldier_ ) and stares out at the sky, too.

It's silent for a few minutes, "If you're not here to kill me, then why _are_ you here?"The words are full of suspicion, and it's a good question; one Phil doesn't have the answer to, so instead he says "Tell me what you did."

Bucky ( _no,_ _not quite…_ ) tenses all over again (when had he relaxed?), " _What?_ " he strangles out, before his face completely blanks, and he's somewhere else, Phil knows.

He still hadn't looked at the other man. Coulson repeats himself, "Tell me what you did. It might help if you say it; get it out of your head." This time he did glance over. The soldier was staring back, the lost look slowly returning, along with the suspicion.

"Why should I talk to you? I don't even know you."

Coulson raised an eyebrow, "Do you know anyone, anymore?" When the other man looked away, he sighed.

"Look," slowly, carefully, Phil reached out, and placed a hand on James' ( _James… that sounds right._ ) shoulder, the metal one, and it's cool to the touch under the thin fabric of his uniform ( _the agent wonders if James can feel it, both Phil's hand, and the cold_ ) "Sometimes," he continues after a few minutes od silence, when he wasn't shaken off, "the only way to move forward, is to talk about all the things you can't let go of with a complete stranger."

James turned back to the sunset, and his hands flexed, "Sounds like a loud of shit, to me…" He swallowed, then sighed, and shook his head to clear his thoughts "I don't know where to start…"

The fact that he was even _thinking_ about talking at all was a relief to Phil, "Let's start with the first thing you remember," The other mans eyebrows scrunched up in concentration, obviously thinking over the question seriously "I… I remember it was cold…"

"Good," Phil encouraged, "What else?" James took a breath, "It was cold, and I couldn't move… but I could see a little bit, and hear muffled voices, and I was like that for a long, _long_ , time, and… _I didn't want to go back,_ I really didn't-" He cut himself off, raking a flesh hand through his hair, "and then they handed me a gun." He finished with a shaky voice.

Coulson squeezed his shoulder in what he hoped was comfort. He'd done this enough with Natasha and Clint that he knew (for the most part) how far he could push, and it didn't take a genius figure out what happened after that, "Thank you for telling me. Can I tell you something?"

"Might as well…" was the answer, a little steadier this time, as he regained his composer.

"It's not your fault."

James jerked away, Phil let him. "Yes it is!" He didn't quite shout, his face twisting into self hate and anger, as Phil had expected, "I killed all those people! Little kids! I- I didn't even care, either, just another job, another target! What kind of _monster_ can do that, and not feel _anything_ -" his was close to hyperventilating now, head in his hands, shaking to the point Coulson was worried he'd fall off the roof.

"It was _not_ your fault." Phil repeated, leaving no room for arguments, "They caught you at a bad time, and they _hurt_ you. That's not your fault." He paused, "and I've seen monsters that can kill innocent people and not blink an eye, and you're not one of them, not even close." He hesitated, but only for a moment, before dragging the soldier to his chest.

"I see them…" James admitted quietly, not leaning into the hug, but leaning away, either "whenever I close my eyes, and I can hear them scream, begging, and I don't know whether that or the cold is worse, and I feel like there should be an obvious choice between the two, but there's not, and I don't know what to think anymore."

Phil closed his eyes and breathed. He knew the feeling, had lived through it, still lives through it every day, and he knows there's nothing he can say or do that could make this any better. "I don't know how to make this any better," He admits, "I don't think there is anything I can do or say that would just magically fix things, if there was, I would have done it for myself _years_ ago," He tightens his grip a little when James shifts, not enough to trap, just a reminder, "But I had people with me then, people that helped me, people I helped when they needed me. You're not alone, James," The other man flinched back at the name.

Coulson pretended not to notice, and continued softly, "You have someone, too, someone who's looking for you, even now. He's been waiting for a long time; maybe it's been long enough."

James looked away; "I don't think I could face him, not yet, not after…" he trailed off.

"I think the Captain's already made his choice," Phil stated lightly, "and in this situation he might have the better judgment." James snorted, then sighed, and leaned back on his hands "Yeah, probably. When he wasn't pickin' fights, the little punk had pretty good instincts."

Coulson looked at him from the corner of his eye, "You remember?" James shrugged, "I remember some things, voices, some faces… They come in flashes, y'know? But I don't think I could be the man he wants me to be…"

Phil did know, and he understood the hesitation, "I'm not saying he'll be able to help you, but anything is better than being alone, especially in situations like these."

"You think so?" He didn't sound very confident.

"Yeah," Phil confirmed, "I do. Just think about it, okay?"

"…I'll think about it."

That was more than Coulson had any right to ask for, and as the last rays of light disappeared from view, he stands up, turns to leave, and as he walks away…

" _Thank you…"_

…He smiles.

 **A/N: I have mixed feelings about the ending...**


End file.
